Consumers are complaining to the Financial Services Ombudsman in record numbers and most of their complaints are about insurance companies, ombudsman Joe Meade has said.
Over 4,100 complaints have been filed so far this year, up 16 per cent on last year, Mr Meade told a seminar yesterday.
Minister for Enterprise and Employment Micheál Martin also told the seminar, organised by the Personal Injuries Assessment Board (PIAB), that he would not hesitate to introduce further legislation to protect the board if it came under attack.
The new system for handling personal injury claims administered by the board is deeply unpopular with lawyers, who have seen a dramatic drop in their earnings from such claims.
Earlier this year, the Dáil passed legislation that prevents claimants who reject an award made by PIAB but who fail to get more than that amount in later court proceedings from claiming their legal costs.
The measure has helped push up the acceptance rate for PIAB awards from 60 per cent to 66 per cent, the board's chief executive, Patricia Byron, told the seminar.
Amid concern that insurance premiums are on the rise again after a period of keen competition between insurers, Mr Martin said he would expect that any increase in premiums would arise from a calculation of costs based on "genuine estimates".
He said he hoped there would be progress in talks between the board and the insurance sector, which are aimed at getting the insurers to release more claims information that would enable people to assess whether cost savings are being passed on to customers.
Mr Meade said that of the 11,300 complaints he had dealt with since his office opened in 2005, 7,000 were about insurance companies. Some 5,000 case files were closed without the need for investigation, he said, and another 5,000 were the subject of an investigation. About 60 per cent of cases were decided in favour of the complainant.
"When I do not uphold a complaint, representations by complainants to ministers or TDs or threats that I will be referred to Joe Duffy or The Irish Times have no impact, as my sole focus is to be an independent and impartial arbiter of unresolved disputes and not a consumer champion or an advocate."
Mr Meade has the power to order financial institutions to rectify their behaviour and can also force them to pay compensation up to €250,000. However, he suffered a reverse recently when the High Court overturned his order to Quinn Direct to repay a €25 administration fee to thousands of its customers. The court said the insurance company was obliged to repay the fee only to those customers who complained.
The ombudsman's subsequent request for new powers that would allow him to make blanket decisions has been referred by the Minister for Finance to a financial services advisory forum.
Mr Meade said his office was a new body and could expect to have its powers challenged. While he would defend such actions vigorously, he wouldn't lose any sleep over them.
Less than one per cent of his decisions had been appealed, he said, and the courts had upheld some of the most important of these.
